before
been treated in this way. They had many slaves to perform such tasks.

"You know I cannot," she said.

"Why not?" asked her husband.

"Because I have never learned how to cut a fish in pieces nor to cook
it," she replied.

"I am astonished that you don't know how to cut, after seeing that
cutting is your favorite occupation," said Somacuel.

Capinangan then did not doubt that her husband knew what she had done,
so she did as he had bidden.

When dinner was ready the husband and wife ate it, but without speaking
to each other. After the meal, Somacuel told his wife that he had
seen all and should punish her severely. Capinangan said nothing. A
guilty person has no argument with which to defend himself. Somacuel
ordered his servants to throw Capinangan into the sea. At that time
the chief's will was law. Neither pleadings nor tears softened his
hard heart, and Capinangan was carried down to the sea and thrown in.

Time passed by; Somacuel each day grew sadder and gloomier. He would
have been willing now to forgive his wife, but it was too late.

He said to his slaves: "Prepare a banca for me, that I may sail from
place to place to amuse myself."

So one pleasant morning a banca sailed from Sinaragan, going
southward. Somacuel did not intend to go to any definite place,
but drifted at the mercy of wind and current. He amused himself by
singing during the voyage.

One day the crew descried land at a distance. "Sir," they said,
"that land is Cagayan. Let us go there to get oysters and crane's
eggs." To this their master agreed, and upon anchoring off the coast
he prepared to visit the place.

Oh, what astonishment he felt, as he saw, peeping out of the window of
a house, a woman whose appearance resembled in great measure that of
Capinangan! He would have run to embrace her, had he not remembered
that Capinangan was dead. He was informed that the woman was named
Aloyan. He began to pay court to her, and in a few weeks she became
his wife.

Somacuel was happy, for his wife was very affectionate. Aloyan,
on her part, did not doubt that her husband loved her sincerely,
so she said to him:--

"My dear Somacuel, I will no longer deceive you. I am the very woman
whom you caused to be thrown into the sea. I am Capinangan. I clung
to a log in the water and was carried to this place, where I have
lived ever since."

"Oh," said Somacuel, "pardon me for the harshness with which I meant
to punish you."